Wendy Schwartz

Wendy Schwartz has worked with the War Resisters League for more than 40 years and is a writer, editor, and researcher for non-profit organizations and publishers.

Karl Bissinger: A Retrospective

Karl Bissinger: Hope, No Matter What

A shorter version of this article was printed in the winter issue of WIN as a memorial to Karl, who died on November 19, 2008, shortly after his 94th birthday.

For Karl Bissinger, the road to the War Resisters League and the Peace Pentagon was a long and winding one, covering every continent but Australia and the richest and poorest that the world offers. “I always considered myself an anarchist first,” he said, “but the more wars there are, the more of a pacifist I become.”

Mother of the Mobe

 

Norma Becker
1930-2006

Born in 1930, Norma Lee Pliskin Becker, the woman who grew up to be the peace movement’s organizer-in-chief, first wanted to be a ballet dancer. As a girl, traveling from her home in the Bronx to ballet classes in Manhattan, she expected to have a future in toe shoes. But she was also a child of progressive parents, and began planting her feet on a box on Burnside Avenue and making pro-union speeches. Soon the dream of being a dancer faded as the desire to change the world took hold.